604 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



united science of organisms ; the physiology of plants and of animals 

 have become coalesced in universal biology ; the boundary between 

 the organic and inorganic aspects of Nature is being ever more and 

 more obliterated, and out of the several natural sciences a single uni- 

 form, universal natural science is being constructed. 



But the deeper natural science penetrates from outward phenomena 

 to universal laws, the more she lays aside her former fear to test the 

 latest fundamental questions of being and becoming (Sem undWerden), 

 of space and time, of matter and force, of life and spirit, by the scale 

 of the inductive method, and the more confidently she lifts her views 

 concerning the universe out of the cloudy atmosphere of hypothesis 

 into the clear ether of theory grounded on fact, so much the more will 

 the gap be narrowed which since Kant has separated science from 

 philosophy. Schiller's advice to philosophers and men of science 



"Feindschaft sei zwischen euch ; noch ist das Btlndniss zu frilhe; 

 Uur wenn in Kampf ihr euch trennt, dann wird die "Wahrheit enthiilt," 



has been followed for more than half a century, to the gain of the 

 natural sciences, but often to the injury of philosophy, which would 

 knock away the firm ground from under our feet. But since Herbart 

 and Schopenhauer, and especially through Hartmann's labors, have 

 the two chief drifts of the work of the human mind been approaching ; 

 and if natural science has a mission to mould the future of our race, 

 she must court the purifying influence of philosophical criticism ; and 

 this mission, in Dr. Cohn's estimation, the science of the future cannot 

 reject. Its importance rests not merely in the much interesting and 

 useful information which can be made available to trade and industry, 

 for daily economy and universal civilization ; she must build a sure 

 foundation for our collective view of the universe, for our knowledge 

 of ultimate and highest things. It must be no longer the case that 

 even our most educated classes, in consequence of insufficient education, 

 have neither interest nor intelligence for the pursuit and acquisition 

 of scientific knowledge. Moreover, science will be no more able to 

 shun battle with other systems of the universe which have been hal- 

 lowed by the traditions of a thousand years, than were Socrates and 

 Aristotle, Copernicus and Galileo. Victory will lie on the side of 

 truth. 



But if anxious souls should fear that, with the advance of a scientific 

 knowledge of the universe among the people, would come a breaking 

 up of political and social order, let them be assured by the teaching 

 of history. When we perceive the flash of an electric spark, we cer- 

 tainly do not take it for a bolt darted by the revengeful Jupiter ; and, 

 as the vault of heaven is resolved into air and light, so also must the 

 Olympus be shattered which was built thereon. But the ideas of the 

 true, the beautiful, and the good, remain unshaken ; they have been all 

 the more firmly established, for they have been deduced from the order 



